— LPS to pay Missouri $2 million and cooperate in ongoing criminal investigation of DOCX president Lorraine Brown —

Jefferson City, Mo. – Attorney General Chris Koster today said his office has negotiated a settlement of criminal proceedings against mortgage-services company DOCX and an agreement with DOCX parent company Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS). In February 2012, Koster obtained criminal indictments against DOCX related to its alleged role in the mortgage-document surrogate-signing scandal of 2010.

Under the agreement, LPS will pay the state of Missouri $2 million and will cooperate with the Attorney General’s Office in its continuing criminal investigation of founder and former president of DOCX, Lorraine Brown.

Specifically, LPS will pay $1.5 million into the Missouri state treasury and will pay $500,000 to the Merchandising Practices Revolving Fund of the Attorney General’s Office as reimbursement for the costs of the investigation.

DOCX earned approximately $363,000 in total revenue from the execution and filing of mortgage-related documents in the state of Missouri for the years 2008-2010. Consequently, LPS’s payment of $2 million to the state is well in excess of the revenue earned by the company in the state of Missouri during the relevant time period, and is approximately two and a half times the amount that could be obtained as a result of convictions on the previously pending indictments. LPS discontinued the operations of DOCX in May 2010. LPS terminated Lorraine Brown in November 2009.

Koster obtained the indictments against Brown and DOCX for forgery and making false declarations related to mortgage documents processed by DOCX in the state of Missouri. The Attorney General’s indictments alleged that DOCX directed employees of the company to falsely sign mortgage documents in the names of various bank vice presidents without proper authorization. Furthermore, the indictments alleged that such forged signatures were then falsely notarized by DOCX as though such bank vice presidents had actually signed the documents. Finally, the forged documents were then filed in courthouses across Missouri.

“My office has taken the position that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters,” Koster said. “The monetary disgorgement and the agreement we have reached in this criminal case with DOCX should remind all mortgage-services processers that our system of titling real property will be held to a standard of accuracy and truth expected by homeowners across the country.”

“I appreciate LPS taking responsibility for the actions of its subsidiary, and for their agreeing to cooperate in our continuing criminal investigation of this matter.”

Koster noted that LPS has also entered into a separate consent order with the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that requires LPS to allow an independent, third-party consultant to conduct a review of document execution services provided by subsidiaries of LPS, such as DOCX, between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2010. The review is intended to assess potential financial injury to borrowers. Under the federal consent order, LPS has agreed to prepare a remediation plan to provide restitution to borrowers if any such financial harm is found. Under the terms of today’s agreement, LPS has agreed to report to the Attorney General’s Office on a quarterly basis to provide the status of its compliance with the federal consent order as it pertains to Missouri residents.

The Attorney General’s Office has agreed not to prosecute LPS or DOCX for DOCX’s previous surrogate-signing related conduct so long as LPS makes the above-referenced payments and complies with the terms of the agreement.

The indictments against DOCX and Lorraine Brown were the result of months of investigation by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office into the robo-signing scandal that injected thousands of questionable mortgage documents into the market. The 68 documents on which the indictments were based were purportedly signed by an employee of DOCX, Linda Green, in her role as a designated vice president for several of the nation’s leading banks, but were in fact signed by someone else, and subsequently notarized and filed in Missouri.

The pending charges against the defendant are merely accusations. As in all criminal cases, the defendant is presumed innocent unless or until proven guilty.

3 Responses to “Attorney General Koster announces settlement of criminal proceedings against mortgage surrogate signing company DOCX and agreement with parent company LPS”

I applaud these Attorney Generals for going after wrong doers for these action in States, but in other States as law are on the books against fraudulent action such as the State of Nebraska that under their Foreclosure Protection Act is not enforced as MERS Assistance Secretaries freely signed mortgage documents such as Notices of Default that don’t have who is the actual owner of the Notes but these fraudulent documents are still allow to remain as fact in the court records.

MERS as this alleged electronic registry in all cases where a FHA or VA loan is in a pool controlled by Ginnie Mae, has had the Notes transferred to is by having the lenders sign endorsing in Blank the Notes. MERS also in its system through the GinnieNet has this transfer of title procedure, but when it come to foreclosing there is a phony lender put into title in local land recording offices in order to fraudulently administratively foreclose so that the court is not afforded the ability to see the Notes, and see that they are Blank. How is it possible for a MERS employee not to know that in its system, that where Ginnie Mae is listed as the “investor” that they have possession of the Blank Notes? If Ginnie Mae did not have possession of the Blank Notes then someone else is listed as the “investor”!

Why did Lender resort to openly having DOCX operate a document sweat shop were one worker would forge up to 4,000 document per day as if no one was going to notice.

This is not rocket science in solving this crisis, as all it take is “do you have possession of the Note and your name is on the Note as owner and you have originated or purchase the loan” and “you need to be in title as the owner of the Note/debt”

Across the country AGs have generally been asleep, underfunded or politically complicit with Banksters to do have much effect, with a few or more notable exceptions. The AG sell out last spring cannot be forgotten and is a pretty good reason not to vote for Obama or Romney.
The US Justice Department has simply not done their job, which should anger everyone. That said, this case is now focusing on one individual. I’m not a lawyer, but corporations weasel out of so much, and typically the state gets medieval on one employee. I’d prefer to see this case go the other way. How many of us have to do what we’re told at work?

Yea… Big Deal… The State Governments get richer… more money for the Governments to blow is all this is. What about the individuals rights? I know what it’s like… I lost properties to foreclosure back in 1992, filed a chapter 7 in 1994 and for the next 12 years my credit report stated that I still owed on those properties and at 12 years… it said I was behind in payments for all 12 years! After the first year the Attorney I’d hired for the Bankruptcy gave up trying to resolve my credit rating problem… so I took 2 courses and started mailing letters. 4 times a year I mailed letters showing my Bankruptcy “forgiveness(?)” on each property to the Credit Rating Agencies and the respective Bank (yep, just one Bank)… each time the Bank just changed the amount I owed them and the Rating Agencies then reported the new altered lies!

As long as “the people” keep letting these “Banks” and their minion get off with “supposed” fines paid to our Government, the people who were screwed by the Banks… who are now also screwed by their Governments… are perfect examples of how this Country has moved from a Democracy into a Oligarchy.

The Government of the United States of America is supposed to protect it’s citizens… not take advantage of them by stealing their equity… even though it’s being done in a round about way… and protecting those who engineered the greatest transfer of wealth through fraud and deceit in the history of mankind.